Chemistry Classroom To BJP War Room: Meet Amit Malviya's Successor Deepak Mhaskey

Amit Malviya has played the lead role in BJP's digital machine for well over a decade now, guiding the party in its online messaging in some of the toughest political battles in India. In appointing Deepak Mhaskey as the BJP's new National Social Media Convenor, the party has entrusted the job to a leader who has always been an unknown entity in the public eye.

Mhaskey becomes the newest addition to BJP president Nitin Nabin's new national team, bringing an organisation man from Chhattisgarh into the BJP's digital ecosystem during a period when politics and social media are getting increasingly linked to each other.

While Malviya was someone who regularly engaged in online political warfare, Mhaskey's reputation with the BJP rests on his voter analyses and data work. He is described by BJP leaders as someone who has built his reputation not on television screens or on social media platforms, but in the trenches of data analytics and campaign management.

According to BJP sources, Mhaskey belongs to a senior BJP leadership from Chhattisgarh's Raipur. His career has been unconventional. He has a master's degree in chemistry, a diploma in cement technology and training in computer programming. Before taking up full-time politics, he used to teach chemistry at a college. Thereafter, he got interested in horticulture, organic farming and agriculture and has worked in those areas for over three decades.

His involvement in the technology and social media ecosystem of the BJP goes back to around 2009. In the course of the years, he has been a part of the BJP's Chhattisgarh IT Cell as chief and spokesperson and has contributed to electoral campaigning and data analysis in many assembly elections. Party sources say he has helped in developing beneficiary databases and data-based outreach models that have become increasingly significant in modern-day election campaigns.

Outside the BJP, he has even had some administrative work. He currently serves as chairman of the Chhattisgarh Medical Services Corporation Limited with Minister of State rank and has previously been an independent director of the board of Engineers India Limited.

His promotion has been viewed as a signal from the BJP to adopt a more organisationally driven and analytics-oriented social media strategy. While the party has appointed a warrior, it has selected a strategist for the job.

Soon after taking charge, he stated that fighting misinformation would be one of his top priorities.

"The Bharatiya Janata Party's priorities are absolutely clear: we must win elections to serve the public, and our entire team will work wholeheartedly towards this using social media. Propaganda will continue to appear in the future, just as it has in the past; however, the truth cannot remain hidden. While propaganda may create a momentary atmosphere, if we consistently provide the right answers over the long term, people's misconceptions are dispelled and the Bharatiya Janata Party will certainly proceed in that direction," Mhaskey said.

It has become one of the most important decisions in the BJP's organisational reorganisation under Nitin Nabin. This decision may indicate a future where the BJP would give priority to an approach based more on data, organisation and communication rather than personality.

Whether Deepak Mhaskey continues to remain a behind-the-scenes strategist or turns out to be another Amit Malviya, a national-level political communicator, remains unknown.

For now, it can only be said that the BJP has entrusted its social media command centre to a strategist who is known more for spreadsheets and strategy than sloganeering and social media wars.